


i know your rhythm

by goingmywaydoll



Series: you and me [3]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Brewer Family Things, Fluff, Future Fic, In-Laws, M/M, Post-Season/Series 05, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 16:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21664309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll/pseuds/goingmywaydoll
Summary: Scenes from a going away party.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: you and me [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1434736
Comments: 37
Kudos: 301





	i know your rhythm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wardo_wedidit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wardo_wedidit/gifts).

> for aly, of course, on her birthday, because the brewers are her favorite and because my real birthday gift for her is late in the mail. hopefully now you know why i was "working" last night at one am and all day today--sorry for ignoring you <3
> 
> and thank you, as always, to leslie, my ever-available, ever-helpful beta, and to kat, for helping on such late notice. both of your edits are the reason this is vaguely readable.
> 
> title from maggie rogers' dog years.

They drive up on a Saturday morning, early enough that David sets out his outfit for the next day the night before, just next to his packed overnight bag by the couch. He won’t be showing up in sweatpants, even if Patrick pulls him out of bed before seven. He wakes with Patrick’s alarm and Patrick shifting beside him in bed, a kiss pressed to David’s temple before he rolls out of bed and stumbles in the direction of the kitchen. There’s coffee out on the counter and grounds and water already in the machine so all Patrick has to do is flick a switch. He makes it back to bed, falling on top of the sheets with a huff of breath. 

“Your fault,” David says into his pillow.

“My dad’s fault,” Patrick corrects, words muffled in the sheets. 

“I’m still trying to get them to like me,” David says, rolling onto his back and glaring at the ceiling. “So I’m going to keep saying it’s your fault we’re leaving this early.”

“At least you can sleep in the car,” Patrick says sourly, turning his head to the side to face David, hair half-flattened against the mattress. 

“I_ offered _to drive,” David says, because he did. 

Patrick fixes him with a look. “I’m not sure waiting until yesterday and acting like someone had you at gunpoint was you really _ offering_.”

He’s right. It wasn’t. It was a poor attempt. “Do you…_ want _me to drive?”

Patrick blinks at him, looking too sleepy to manage the pointed look he clearly wants to direct at David. “No, David, I want to drive the three hours to my parents’ after getting less than five hours of sleep so that we can help them set up for a party that doesn’t start until six pm.”

“Well,” David says, throwing aside the duvet with a grin and sliding out of bed. “There’s no need to be rude.”

Patrick buries his head in the sheets and they swallow his laugh. David shoots him a smug look he can’t see. “That was record time,” Patrick says, flopping over to lie on his back, leaning back on his elbows and watching as David stands.

“Mmm, turns out coffee and forcing your husband to drive at an ungodly hour is a fantastic motivator,” David says as he pulls off his sleep shirt, placing it in the hamper. “Maybe I’m just trying to keep you on your toes. Surprises keep a relationship interesting.”

“Do they?” Patrick asks, brow raised. David hums in response, pulling on his pants. “I feel like surprising me by getting out of bed before me—even though technically I got out of bed first to make the coffee—is maybe not what people are talking about with that expression.”

David turns on his heel, glancing down at Patrick. “Want to elaborate on that?”

Patrick pushes himself off the bed, pressing a kiss to David’s cheek before walking in the direction of the kitchen. “Nope, because I have to drive us to my parents’ because you refused to.”

He’s only half-dressed but he follows Patrick down the hall into the kitchen anyway. “_Okay_, define ‘refuse’ because I did offer, even if it wasn’t very um... enthusiastic?”

“Yeah, enthusiastic is not the word I would use either,” Patrick mutters as he reaches for two mugs. 

“I can be enthusiastic with some persuasion?”

“Are you saying that you’ll drive us to my parents’ with some_ persuasion_?”

David pauses. “I mean,_ is _that what I was offering? Because persuasion is open-ended, because you could, like, try to persuade me and it could_ not _work.”

“David.” Patrick turns from the coffee maker, holding a cup in one hand and the pot in the other, pouring it as he fixes David with a look. “I’m not having sex with you to get you to drive us to my parents.”

“Could be fun though?”

“Tell that to my dad when he asks why we’re late.”

David pulls a face, rolling his shoulders back. “Okay_ ew_, I’d really rather not.” He nudges Patrick aside, reaching for his mug and missing when Patrick snatches it out of reach.

“Oh, that’s my coffee,” Patrick says over the rim of his mug, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’re not driving, so I figured you…wouldn’t need it.”

… 

It’s still foreign, David thinks as Patrick pulls into his parents' driveway. The front door is opening as Patrick shuts off the car, perfectly timed, as if everything is happening on a strict schedule; Marcy and Clint are making their way across the front yard to the car, grinning so widely David shrinks. Patrick grabs his hand over the dashboard and squeezes once. 

“You can do this,” he says, quiet and just for David even though the car doors and windows are still closed. David gives him a nod that’s much less shaky than he’s feeling because Patrick deserves that, deserves a husband who finds it easy, effortless to hang out with his parents. “They love you.”

“Well, you_ would _say that,” David says under his breath. Patrick does say it, every time they see them._ They love you, they adore you, they’re happy for us, David._

He can see Marcy and Clint approaching the car and he can’t stay in it any longer, it’s so much worse if he does. So he gets out first, grateful that the passenger side is farther from them so that Patrick is the first person they hug. 

When he comes around the other side of the car, Marcy is unwrapping her arms from around Patrick’s neck and turning toward David. He almost flinches at the brightness of her smile, none of it faked. She hesitates in front of him, like she does every time, and maybe a year ago a small, bitter voice at the back of his head would say it was because she didn’t like him. Now, after spending time with her, he knows it’s because she wants to hug him on his terms, give him a chance to just say hello from afar. 

Patrick is talking to his dad about fishing, still in eyesight of David, and David smiles warmly and opens his arms. Marcy lets out a breath and pulls him into a hug, warm and tight and like the ones Adelina used to give him. 

Clint hugs him too, with a pat on the back and words of welcome David barely hears. He helps them with the bags, ignores Patrick when he mentions his back, and winks at David when he gets the bags to the door without incident, Patrick hovering nearby. Marcy is talking quickly, talking about the party that night and moving from room to room; the Brewers’ house is small enough that they can hear her in the living room, then the kitchen. 

She’s cleaning up, but in a haphazard sort of way, picking up a pile of laundry on the couch and depositing it in a basket in the kitchen, but not putting it away. “The house is such a mess, really, I’m not sure if it’ll be ready in time for the party,” she says, reappearing in the foyer with a dish in her hand. 

“We can help clean up. That’s why we’re here, Mom,” Patrick says; he’s already rolling up his sleeves.

“It’ll get done,” Clint says as Marcy puts a hand on Patrick’s arm. 

“You’re here to say goodbye to your childhood home and to see family, sweetheart. You and David take some coffee and go outside, you must be wiped from the drive. I can handle this,” she says, already walking away into the kitchen as she talks. 

Patrick follows her, shooting David a look over his shoulder. “I’m coming back to help with the move. This isn’t the last time I’ll be here,” he says, grabbing the broom leaning against the wall of the living room. 

David shifts his weight, unsure about everything, wondering if he should follow Patrick to clean or take their bags upstairs. He can’t tell if it’s ruder to ignore Marcy and help or to respect her wishes. 

As if sensing his trepidation, Clint puts an arm on his shoulder. “They’ll spend the next half hour bickering about if Patrick should help or not. Meanwhile, I am going to finish cleaning the bathroom,” he says. “You don’t have to help, really. I think Marcy would drop dead if you did.”

“Are you sure? I want to…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, not even sure of what he wants. 

“I know we told you two to get here early to help out, but most of the preparation was finished yesterday,” Clint says and David isn’t surprised. Clint leans back so he can see into the kitchen where Patrick is wiping down the counters before telling David in a low voice, “Marcy wanted to see you two without everyone around, I think. Wanted you two to be the first to arrive. And considering her sister could show up any minute to start helping set up, we had to have you come by early.” He pauses, half-turned toward the bathroom. “It’s nice to see you, David,” he says finally, putting a hand on David’s arm.

David blinks at him. “Oh, um. Mmm, it’s so nice to see you too,” he says finally, the words tumbling from his mouth before he has a chance to organize them into something actually coherent and polite. He wants to thank him for having them but it feels like an odd thing to do, to thank his in-laws for having their son and his husband in their house. He says nothing.

“Just a tip,” Clint says, “If you_ do _want to help, the best way to do it is sitting down. They don’t notice you folding napkins if you’re seated at the table and making conversation.”

David nods, feeling his mouth stretch into a smile. “Noted.”

He slips into the kitchen, lingering by the door as Marcy dries the dishes Patrick washes. She’s telling him about the moving process, that there’s a box in their room with some things Patrick left behind when he moved out, old guitar picks, sheet music, his high school diploma. “And there’s a box your dad sorted of things from when you were little. It’s mostly things for the memories, school assignments, and photos, but we thought we’d ask if you wanted us to hold onto them or if you wanted them at your house,” she says, catching sight of David by the door. “David, sweetheart, would you like some tea?”

“Oh, no, no, thank you. I’ll just sit and keep you company,” he says, sitting at the kitchen table and pulling the pile of laundry toward him so he can fold napkins and dish towels without them noticing. 

“You didn’t need to do that,” Patrick says to his mom. “I was going to sort through some things when I come back next week.”

Marcy shrugs. “We had the time.”

“Uh huh,” Patrick says, looking at David. David shakes his head, biting back a smile. 

Now that he’s sitting, David gets a good look at the house. There are still framed photos and plants in the windows, but there’s a fresh coat of paint on all the walls, covering the hash marks climbing up the doorjamb as Patrick grew, like they’re in a sixties sitcom. The dent Clint showed him the first time David visited, the one that Patrick always banged his bat against as he went out the back door, is plastered over too, the chips in the cabinets smoothed over and broken handles fixed. 

He wonders how Patrick feels about it, to see everything cleaned up and covered. He’s still as at ease as he always is when they come, moving around the house blindly, instinctively. 

She’s telling him about what he’s missed since he’s last been home—new babies, new jobs, people moving, coffee shops replacing hardware stores that have been in town for years. She lists things off like she had them planned out to say and it should feel like a thorough update on the goings-on in their town but it doesn’t. Patrick glances at him from the sink before his gaze flickers back to his mom, patient and waiting.

“Oh, and Matt is getting married,” she says, almost offhand, like it’s barely news at all. Matt, in all those photo albums of Patrick at summer camp, playing guitar by a lake. David refolds a napkin, remembering Patrick flipping through those pages quickly with his mom on one side and David on the other. It was only later, when his parents were gone from the room, that Patrick, quiet with his gaze flickering toward the door to the living room, told him about Matt leaning in close, throwing his arm around him too often, and how Patrick ran from it the second he could. “I ran into his mom at the grocery store and she told me he proposed to his girlfriend last week, isn’t that lovely?”

He can see Patrick’s hands still in the sink, watches him turn around to face David, looking at him pointedly as he wipes his hands. “Yeah,” Patrick says, eyes sliding to meet his mom’s. “He actually told me.”

Marcy’s eyes widen, just for a moment, before she nods and says, slowly, “I didn’t know you were back in contact.”

“Yeah, he called around the wedding.” 

It had almost blurred together with all the other well-wishes from people who hadn’t spoken to Patrick in years, except David does remember scratching at Patrick’s shoulders as he asked him how he felt about being congratulated for his gay wedding by his gay awakening. David still feels Patrick’s laugh against him when he told him he didn’t have a gay awakening, just a long stream of quiet sort of signs that ended with one very glaring one. 

“I didn’t know you talked again,” David says, before he can stop himself, still looking down at the half-folded napkin in his hand. Patrick looks at him, a careful eyebrow arched, something of a smile tugging at his lips. David shoots him a pointed look back, as if to say_ What? _

“He asked for proposal advice actually,” Patrick tells them. “Said something about how I finally made one proposal stick and he wanted to know how.” It comes out light, just a repeated joke for the sake of the story back to them, but David sees Marcy wince behind Patrick; he knows they both heard the strained tone in Patrick’s words. 

He’s still folding the laundry carefully, making a neat pile of dish rags before him. “What did you tell him?”

Patrick has moved across the room now, carrying a pot over to the cabinets. He stops to kiss David’s cheek, quick as anything. “Wear thicker shoes on a hike.”

… 

He’s hot and sticky and wishing he packed one of those short-sleeved button-downs he hasn’t worn in years. Patrick is by the grill with a cousin, wearing an apron and everything, like he cares about getting anything on his tee-shirt that’s probably from 2005, which he doesn’t. He wants to stand by him, sit beside Patrick so that Patrick can lean against him between flips of burgers, so they can share David’s sangria because Patrick keeps losing his after moving from room to room. It’s too hot by the grill so David is sitting a good ten feet away, with Marcy and her sister. They’re talking about Marcy’s niece, still in college. 

He’s hot and sticky and sitting in the Brewers’ backyard talking to in-laws and watching his husband grill and it doesn’t even feel foreign anymore. 

“He’s abandoned me.” David uses his drink to gesture in the direction of the yard, where Patrick is handing out baseball mitts to his cousins’ kids now that his dad has snatched the spatula from him.

“I wouldn’t take it personally,” Marcy says with a grin, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s always baseball with us. Well, softball, if you know what’s good for you.”

David remembers. They had told him the story the first time he ever visited, over dinner in a room no more than twenty feet from them now. Clint had gone to every single one of Marcy’s softball games in college, never once asking her out like he wanted to. She went to just one of his hockey games two months later and told him they’d be having dinner the next week, or he shouldn’t bother coming to her games if he was going to keep chickening out. 

Patrick drops by, pressing a kiss to David’s temple and stealing his glass of sangria before David can stop him, one hand on his shoulder. His aunt is talking about when the treehouse first went up, going into some story about a cousin who fell off the edge and knocked out three of their teeth. Marcy tells her she’s got the year wrong and goes off to collect plates.

“Of_ course _you had a treehouse,” David says, waving a hand at the back of the yard. “Mmm, let me guess…” he trails off, tapping his finger against his chin as if he’s thinking hard. He isn’t. “Your dad built it.”

“I mean, I helped,” Patrick says with a shrug, grinning widely. 

“Oh my _ god_, could you for one second try to have a normal childhood?”

“Between the two of us, who do you think had a more ‘normal’ childhood?” Patrick says back, brow raised. David looks away, lips pressed in a thin line, unmoving and refusing to smile.

Clint walks up behind them, placing a hand between David’s shoulder blades. “Patrick will tell you he helped, but he was six and just swung the hammer around.”

“You gave him a hammer?”

Clint shrugs. “He was a responsible kid.”

Marcy is walking up the steps to the deck, carrying a tray of empty plates. “He was, but you shouldn’t have given him the hammer,” she says, knocking her hip against her husband’s as she passes them.

“Well.” Clint takes a sip of his beer. “No one got hurt.”

Patrick scoffs. “Dad,_ you _ got hurt.”

“Did I…?”

Patrick reaches over, taking his dad’s hand and lifting it to his eye line. “This definitely looks like a thumb that wasn’t broken by a hammer,” he says. 

“That was the week you ran away.”

“That was_ not _the week I ran away, I ran away when I was nine, Dad.”

“I’m sorry.” David waves a hand between them and they both turn to face him. “You _ ran away?_”

Patrick flushes red. “Not really.”

“He_ tried_. As hard as he could. I would have been proud if he hadn’t been trying to run away from home.”

“Elaborate, please.”

“It’s too bad Will isn’t here, he tells the story much better than Patrick does,” Clint says, looking forlorn. 

“Okay, Dad, thanks.” Patrick shakes his head before wrapping an arm around David’s waist, pulling him in. “Technically, it wasn’t my idea to run away.”

He was nine and it was a Tuesday. His bedroom faced the street, his desk just in front of the window that looked out over the sidewalk. He was nine and his best friend Will was pulling a rolling suitcase down the sidewalk, head down, looking sullen. He thinks his window must have been open, Patrick tells them, because he stuck his head out to ask Will where he was going. They had a game the next day; Will wouldn’t miss baseball for a trip. He had called up to Patrick and told him, frankly, that he was running away. 

He didn’t tell Patrick why, or maybe he forgot, but Patrick emptied his backpack of school supplies, keeping his science notebook and two number two pencils inside. He filled it with two tee shirts, two pairs of pants, and a pair of shorts. He told Will he was coming down, coming with him, actually. He wouldn’t last long on his own. Will had brought a rolling suitcase, which was much more inconvenient than a backpack. When Patrick came to a stop in front of him, he asked him what his plan was; Will had none. So Patrick sat down on the grass and took out his science notebook and made a list of things they’d need. He told Will to go home, to get a backpack instead, and then he went into his pantry and grabbed canned food, no perishables. 

That was where Clint found him. He asked why Patrick was in the pantry with his backpack and Patrick wasn’t a very good liar to his parents (yet) and he told him that he and Will were running away. They’d be back, but they needed enough food to last until their next visit. Clint nodded and listened to Patrick’s plan, then asked if he wanted the camping stove in the basement. Or maybe the tent too, and some sleeping bags. Did he need money, or were they going to get jobs? He called Marcy to ask if she knew of any places hiring nine year old boys whose only skills were their multiplication tables and baseball. Marcy thought about it and said she would ask around. Then she asked Patrick what he wanted for dinner. He almost told her mac and cheese, because he did want mac and cheese, but that wasn’t the point. He slung his backpack over his shoulder, heavy with the canned foods and told his parents he would see them in six months. Marcy asked what he wanted for dinner again when he walked out the door. 

“They made it to the bus when they realized we had the keys to their piggy banks,” Clint says. “We had Will over for dinner that night. Marcy made mac and cheese.”

David knows things weren’t always that simple for Patrick. But still, it stands in such sharp contrast to his own running away story when he was seven and snuck on the bus with Adelina and begged her to take him home with her. She did, after leaving three voicemails on the Roses’ answering machine, and made him Kraft mac and cheese and let him play with her own children. She took him to work with her the next morning, where his mom fussed over him and where his dad gave him a hug out the door on the way to the office. He pleaded with her to go back the next day. Instead, she sat him down on his bed and knelt in front of him, hands on his shoulders. He had to stay for Alexis, she told him, brushing an errant curl from his face. Who would play with Alexis if he wasn’t here? And besides, his parents would miss him very much. 

He remembers, vividly, that feeling of pressing his lips together and praying his chin wasn’t trembling as he fought back tears. He was too old for tears and besides, what if Alexis found out he cried when he found out he had to stay living there? 

He rests his hand on Patrick’s shoulder, leaning into him. “Of course you only ran away to help your little friend.”

Patrick’s ears go pink again and he sips his beer. “Probably would have died if I hadn’t offered to come with him.”

Clint lets out a short laugh. “Let’s not pretend that you adapt to unforeseen events better than Will. Where’s Marcy, I bet she’d love to tell David about when we had to pick you up from school because you went to the bathroom when everyone was getting on the bus to the science museum and panicked when everyone was gone when you got back.”

“_Okay_, bye, Dad.” Patrick tugs on David’s hand, pulling him down the steps of the deck and across the lawn to talk to a cousin or two, one of the younger ones who won’t have stories of Patrick’s childhood.

… 

Patrick is sitting back against the far wall of the treehouse, knees bent. He looks deep in thought, brow furrowed, but he sees David just seconds after his head pops above the floor of the treehouse, the tension in his face softening. “Hey,” he says, leaning forward to help pull David up the last rung of the ladder. “How did you find me?”

“You seemed like you needed a second and there are Brewers in literally every room in that house,” David says, crawling over so he can sit beside Patrick, legs stretched out, shoulders pressed together. “Also, your mom told me.” He pauses, looking thoughtful. “Though_ told _is maybe not strong enough. She um? Suggested—nicely, but also like, fiercely, how does she do that?—that I come find you.”

Patrick leans his head against his shoulder. David pushes back a little, because he knows he needs that, needs that little pressure to ground him. “She knows me well.”

He wonders briefly if they should sit in silence, if that’s what Patrick needs. He sneaks a look at his face, mouth still tight around the edges. No, then, it isn’t what Patrick needs. “Everything okay?” he asks, pressing back into him again before retreating. 

“Yeah.” He sighs into it, like the word is a breath of relief, and he’s smiling at David soft and loose now. He isn’t going to pretend he knows why Patrick’s mood has changed so suddenly, so he waits for Patrick to explain why he’s hiding in his childhood treehouse at his parents’ going away party. “I’m okay,” he says, turning his head so he can press a kiss to David’s shoulder. “Just needed a second.”

David hums, understanding. “Next time? Let me know if you need a second.”

Patrick grins, hearing the levity in David’s words. “How_ is _Aunt Louise?”

“Mmm, wanting us to carry her crochet projects in the store.”

Patrick laughs; she’s been asking Patrick’s mom for weeks to connect them and Marcy has been running impressive interference. David watches as the laughter fades from his face, softening into something more thoughtful. “I’m sorry for abandoning you,” he says finally.

“Yes, well, not all Brewers have your flimsy sense of loyalty,” David tells him. “Your dad saved me.”

“What, seriously?” 

David nods. “Possibly my new favorite Brewer.” He waits for Patrick’s laughter to fade, for them to settle into an easy stillness. “It must be hard,” David says. “Leaving here.”

He never had any attachment to the Rose family home, not even to his bedroom or to his parents’ room, down all those long, echoing hallways. Alexis left the second she was old enough for boarding school and that was the only reason he stayed until university. He hadn’t even thought about the house itself beyond what it contained when the CRA emptied it out. 

It’s different for Patrick, or it must be, who lived in one place his whole life, who never would have dreamed of boarding school, who was probably disappointed when his bedroom, with all those baseball posters and CDs, was converted into a guest room. He’s coming back next weekend, just for the day, to help them move. It’ll be empty by then, impersonal and clean. 

“That’s not really it,” Patrick says. “I haven’t lived here in a while.”

David wants to ask_ then what is it? _He waits instead.

“It’s more like…” He pauses, twisting the ring on his finger, absent-minded and idle. “It’s good. To have you here. I like having you here.”

“I like being here,” David says, quick and accommodating. 

Patrick fixes him with a look. “I know it’s weird for you. I know it’s a lot of people, and they’re all a lot too.”

David looks away, out over the lawn through one open wall. “Well, turns out your mom is_ really _good at rescuing me from conversations with Uncle Greg about when we’re going to have_ kids _.” He pulls a face, not subtle at all, and Patrick grins.

“It is one of his greatest skills.”

“That and his ability to put away a whole tray of peanut butter cookies, because_ oh my god_.”

Patrick laughs, low and relaxed. When it fades, he turns his voice thoughtful. “I just never imagined this for myself. It was always—vague. It wasn’t something I looked forward to either. Bringing my spouse to these things. Even with Rachel—she was so good, everyone loved her. She fit right in. But. But I didn’t, I felt like I didn’t.”

David just sits there and listens because sometimes that’s what Patrick needs, to just process things aloud, work them out in sequential order until he figures out why he’s feeling what he’s feeling.

“I fit now. With you. Here. And I like that you fit here.” He nudges his nose against David’s neck and hopes that David can feel his smile against his skin. “All I wanted was to make out with boys in this treehouse.”

David lets his previously focused listening face dissolve into a smile as he twists his body to face Patrick. He puts his hand on Patrick’s cheek. “I mean, we can make that happen,” he says, the smile audible in his voice. Patrick grins up at him before he kisses him, one hand flat and safe on the wooden slats of the floor, the other on David’s thigh. He pulls away too soon, makes himself pull away too soon. “That was not making out,” David says. 

He raises his eyebrows, shaking his head. “My entire extended family is ten feet away, David,” he tells him and David feigns surprise.

“Tell me you didn’t sneak up here during block parties or whatever with your friends and pray that you could make out with one of them with everyone ten feet away.”

“I was a teenager back then. I think I would have made out with any of them anywhere.”

“Would you make out with me anywhere?” David thinks about all those boys Patrick wanted to kiss without knowing he wanted to kiss them and he thinks of those heady first weeks with him, grasping to any privacy they got, kissing in cars like they were in high school, and he thinks _ I’d make out with you anywhere._

He doesn’t say it, though, tucking it away and kissing Patrick again, lightly, chastely. It’s less than he wants, less than what Patrick wants. 

Patrick looks pleased when he pulls away though, kissed into softness.

“Maybe I’ll sneak you out here tonight. Throw like, pebbles at your window or something.” David toys with the collar of Patrick’s shirt as he says it, twisted uncomfortably to the side so he can face him properly without crawling into Patrick’s lap. 

“From the inside?” Patrick asks, flattening out his smile. “Or will you sneak out of the bed we share just so you can throw rocks at my window, assuming you haven’t woken me up by, you know, leaving the bed we share.”

David shakes his head, trying not to laugh, lip caught between his teeth. “Can you just humor me for like, thirty seconds? I’m trying to give you something.”

“And what is that?” He leans his head back so it’s resting against the wall of the treehouse, watching David with a look that says _ I’m listening and absolutely not laughing right now. _

“Well, a handjob if you promise not to tell the whole school,” David says lowly, trailing a finger down Patrick’s chest, when what he really means is new memories of this place.

Patrick tilts his head to the side. “Are you ashamed of me in this scenario?” 

“No,” David says, lofty and with a wave of his hand. “I just have standards. Can’t have people going around saying I’ll give a handjob to just anyone who lets me into their treehouse.”

“David, I’d let you into my treehouse any day.”

There’s a beat and then: “Ew, no, never mind, we’re done.” David is shaking his head and wringing his hands. 

“Yep, yeah, it got weird,” Patrick says quickly, standing, brushing his hands off on his jeans before offering a hand to David. 

Patrick goes first down the ladder, ignoring the way his aunt Cece winks at them, watching David clamber down after him. He helps him hop off the last rung of the ladder, keeping his hand laced through David’s as he pulls them back to the party, not his first Brewer party. He’s known as Patrick’s husband here, Marcy and Clint’s son-in-law, the man who holds Patrick’s hand, sits next to him while he grills, pours him more wine and kisses his cheek when he does so; it isn’t a role that comes easy.

Patrick’s hand is soft in his, his wedding band warm to the touch.

He gets to do a lot of rewriting with David. But, David thinks as he doesn’t let go of his hand, as they walk back to his family, they get to do a lot of their own writing too. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at [brewerspatrick](http://www.brewerspatrick.tumblr.com) and twitter [@gaysteviebudd](https://twitter.com/gaysteviebudd).


End file.
